An interested citizen reading reports on the Namedia conference in New Delhi in the last three days would be wondering whether a number of Indian journalists not known to be radicals have also joined in the campaign against the western media, especially the three leading western agencies, and, indeed, against the west itself. He can be reassured that nothing of the kind has happened.
I do not think I shall be guilty of betraying the in-camera nature of the debate in the two commissions, particularly commission one which dealt with politically sensitive issues relating to the proposed new information order, if I was to say that we Indians lived up to our reputation. Twenty Indians, to name just any figure, spoke with at least 10 voices.
More pertinently, a number of individuals, not just from India, spoke up at this first ever conference of media men from non-aligned countries in support of a freer media in the third world and took pains to emphasize that, with all their failings, the better among the western agencies, newspapers and magazines and broadcasting services enjoyed a high level of credibility all over the world precisely because they exposed the misdoings of even their own governments.
It is even more remarkable that not a single participant in the debate objected to the formulation that government-controlled agencies needed greater freedom and professionalism if they were to win the respect of the people to whom they addressed themselves either in their own countries or other non-aligned countries.
The declaration adopted by the conference speaks for itself. It says: they (media men) seek not only to correct the imbalances which the dominance of the western media has produced… but also strive for widening the area of freedom in their own countries.
Global Struggle
“…Experience has also driven home the lesson, especially to media persons, that this global struggle for equality and justice has a domestic dimension as well. That is indeed why the emphasis has to be as much on balanced flow of information as on free flow of information.
“It (the conference) seeks to promote a freer and a more balanced flow of information. Its aim is to widen the base of freedom of communication and to democratize it.”
Lest it be assumed by sceptics that the Namedia declaration is some kind of window-dressing which does not reflect the discussions which spanned over three days, let me quote from the unanimously adopted report of the proceedings of commission – one which dealt with issues relating to “imbalance – retrospect and prospect”.
“Some speakers pointed out that information sources and agencies in developing countries needed to strengthen their credibility, professional competence and technological base…
“Opinion was expressed that in addition to criticizing the news media of the west, it was time that non-aligned countries looked inward and made a critical assessment of their own performance.
“Another dimension to the problem was the conditions prevailing within the non-aligned world… it would be wrong to overlook internal weaknesses stemming from differences in levels of development among the non-aligned countries, the attitude of non-aligned leaders towards their own news persons, the shortage of resources and trained personnel, and the attitude of media elite.
“Democratization of the information system at the global level goes hand in hand with democratization of media within each country…
“To improve the situation within the non-aligned countries, several suggestions were made.
(Among them) “elimination of all constraints on media whether they be imposed by governments or by private ownership and money power…
Hazardous Job
“Protection for journalists covering hazardous assignment and from oppressive regimes.” This should suffice to establish the point that the Namedia conference was just not an anti-west jamboree and that it was seriously concerned with the issues of liberty and professionalism in the media in the non-aligned world itself. The participants were also fully aware that despite all protestations of solidarity, co-operation among non-aligned countries remained pretty low.
The declaration says: “This Namedia conference strongly feels that governments in non-aligned countries can and must do much more than they have done so far to increase the flow of information among their own people and among non-aligned countries.
“It is an unfortunate fact that the level of cooperation among the media of different non-aligned countries remains low, both qualitatively and quantitatively. …(such) cooperation can also greatly strengthen the capacity of non-aligned countries to overcome the dominance of the western media”.
The report on the proceedings of commission one also reflects this viewpoint. It even notes that at times non-aligned leaders pay “more attention to media persons from the west than to local journalists or those from other non- aligned countries”.
All this is not intended to suggest that a majority of the participants were not more critical of the western media than of their own performance or that they were not more interested in pressing the demand for a new international information order and endorsing moves in that direction such as the news pool of news agencies in non-aligned countries than in spotlighting the weaknesses of their own media and finding out possible remedies. The majority was more concerned with correcting the imbalances in the flow of information which western dominance has produced than with dealing with their own weakness.
This in a sense is unavoidable – a fact which the liberals should understand but often do not. The Namedia declaration sums up the problem rather well. It says: “the non-aligned movement is the product of a historical epoch, in which all peoples, in what has come to be known as the third world, were engaged in the struggle for political freedom and economic justice and against all forms of racial discrimination and oppression. It is, therefore, only natural that the struggle against the continuing western dominance in different walks of life should influence their thinking, attitudes and policies. This is especially so because, despite the near completion of the anti-colonial revolution, economic and other disparities, due to technological revolution, instead of being narrowed in recent years and decades, have widened alarmingly”
It is, therefore, only logical that achievement of political freedom should be followed by search of economic independence and equality and that this search should in turn produce a yearning for a more equitable information order. That much is obvious and to that extent the radicals are justified in mounting the propaganda campaign they have for years. Indeed, an additional point can be made in their favour.
To use the shop-worn definition, the role of the media is to inform, to educate, and to entertain. None of these is a value-free activity. In fact, all these activities are value-laden. Thus it is unavoidable that the information and the entertainment programmes which flow from the west should carry with them western values, the free and large-scale import of which cannot but produce widespread social and cultural confusion and disruption.
But if the liberals do not recognise this grim truth, the radicals turn their faces away from another reality which is that if a country has to compete successfully with the west, it has to acquire comparable skills and that this must involve large-scale borrowings from the west.
Wide Belief
For some years it was widely believed that we in the third world could depend on the Soviet Union to give us the necessary assistance by way of access to technology and financial resources. No one today can possibly regard this to be the case unless he lives in a make-believe world of his own. In fact, the third world recognizes the reality. That is why all its appeals for assistance are addressed to the capitalist west and not to the socialist east and that is also why the US reluctance to provide aid on the old scale causes so much consternation even among the radicals.
This dependence on the west could have been greatly reduced if third world countries had utilized their own resources more effectively and cooperated among themselves on a significant scale. At least some of them, India among them, have not done too badly in either field. But even they have not done enough. The position is equally, if not more alarming, in the information and communication fields. There is an explosion of knowledge and techniques in the west as has never been witnessed before. This explosion – and not brute force or manipulation – is the source of the west’s dominance. It will not go away if we just shout. The issue is too big to be disposed of in this space. I should be returning to it in coming weeks.
The Times of India, 14 December 1983